GOP uses Solyndra mess to push CR

House Republican leaders latched onto the Solyndra mess Thursday in their scramble to round up dozens of votes needed to pass a stopgap spending bill.

Less than 24 hours after an embarrassing floor loss on their first attempt on a continuing resolution to keep the government operating, Speaker John Boehner and his deputies appealed to their rank-and-file members with a proposed offset that cuts about $100 million from the Energy Department loan guarantee program tied to the now infamous California solar company.

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"There's a rescission in the air here," said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), the chairman of the House Appropriations subpanel in charge of the DOE's budget.

Frelinghuysen said he's been told the loan guarantee cuts "will be about $100 million" — just a fraction of the $9.3 billion that the department is slated to award before a Sept. 30 deadline.

GOP leaders are faced with a long night ahead to round up the votes on the CR to keep the government running through mid-November. On Wednesday, 48 Republicans joined 182 Democrats in voting down Boehner’s first attempt at a stopgap bill, opening up the prospect of a government shutdown if the House and Senate can’t come to an agreement before the end of the month.

With Solyndra, one House Republican said on background that the GOP leaders are making a “symbolic” play for conservative votes by latching onto a heated political issue that undercuts the Obama administration's clean energy and green collar jobs agenda.

And it looks like they might be making some headway.

Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.), a frequent no vote on many GOP-written spending bills, including Wednesday’s roll call on the CR, said he “might” support the spending bill if it includes the funding cut to the DOE loan guarantee program.

"The whole Solyndra scandal is a bad thing and they're still giving out all that money to a lot of other companies too," he told POLITICO.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said he expected the CR to pass if the Republicans included the loan guarantee spending cuts.

On Friday, Stearns will lead a hearing with two top Solyndra executives who are planning to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights rather than answer specific questions from the lawmakers investigating the company’s financial woes despite winning a $535 million loan guarantee.

Prepping for a late night ahead, Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers huddled in one of the speaker's offices just off the House floor to compare notes on another CR vote.

When they emerged about 10 minutes later, they had little to say about their game plan. "We're moving forward," Cantor said. "Always making progress," added McCarthy.

But including loan guarantee spending cuts as an offset probably won't win over much support from Democrats who already objected Wednesday when Republicans partially offset $3.65 billion in disaster relief spending in the CR with a $1.5 billion cut to a DOE program for fuel efficient automobiles.

"I think it's a mistake for our country to have the Solyndra issue be used to cut off our nose to spite our face and rely on old fossil fuel instead of looking to the future for new energy," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "Some of these companies are not going to be able to get financing in the marketplace without a loan guarantee, which may suit the Republicans just fine because they don't really want competitors for the oil and coal companies."
Alex Guillen contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 7:14 p.m. on September 22, 2011.

A "MESS" that what Solyndra is just a "MESS" We (the american taxpayers) are on the hook for $535 million dollars. That $535,000,000 dollars. Just a "MESS" How about Solyndra Mess could have paid for 5 of the world best schools for the next 5 years. WOW just a mess.

If that's the case, can you get Rick Perry to stop taking credit for the all the government jobs (over 50%) that were created in Texas? It's not fair to say government does not create jobs and then turn around and take credit for creating jobs.

By the way, ever hear of FDR's Works Program. Saved us from the Depression.

Ever hear of the CBO (Congressional Budget Office)? They are a non-partisan group that both the Republicans and Democrats agree with their analysis. They found that between 1.2 and 3.7 millions jobs were created with the Stimulus.

The Obama Administration also saved the auto industry.

To say the Stimulus created no jobs just demonstrates your inane insistence on believing the impossible just to arrive at your desired conclusion. It is nonsense. How can anyone spend millions and not create one job? To believe such clap trap demonstrates childish reasoning skills.

As far as Solyndra, funding for this company started with Republican President Bush and was owned by a Republican. Yes, the Obama administration may have rushed their application through. That demonstrates the government needs to follow their own REGULATIONS, not that investing in green jobs is a wrong policy. People are in full panic attack because China is pulling ahead yet don't want to acknowledge the millions the Chinese GOVERNMENT invests in green job technology. We can't just wish China's advancements. Private industry needs Government assistance to catch up.

The US had the greatest private company advancements in technology in the world because the US invested millions in the space program. Even the internet, which has created millions of jobs, was because of GOVERNMENT research. Al Gore didn't invent it. The GOVERNMENT did.

By the way, ever hear of FDR's Works Program. Saved us from the Depression.

Duh...we had a Depression anyway. The New Deal just probably tamped down the tendancy for major violence in the streets...later on all sorts of people went to work defeating Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito.

@ Karl Jay. Gawd! Are you being deliberately ignorant of history? The New Deal was in response to the country being allowed to fall into an economic Depression through lack of regulation of the financial industry and lack of worker rights and safety nets.

It is just like Republicans to wait until bridges actually fall down and food being contaminated and killing people to run around like chickens with their heads cut off saying "Government needs to do something!"

Democrats like to use regulation and forethought to try to PREVENT bad things from happening and foster economic industries that will be crucial for future growth.

Ah the GOP/Alinsky tactic of picking villains to cover for ineptitude.

BOEHNER: WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

Since the T-Nuts/GOP took over the House, the economy has slowed and stocks are down almost 20%.

IT'S ABOUT JOBS, STUPID!

Funny, you guys blame the GOP for the problems over the last 9 months, but you claim no credit for the destruction of the economy that took place when the dems contolled the House from 2006 to 2010. That form of hypocrisy is just "so special".

I find it humerous that you try to mislabel the GOP as using Alinsky tactics by using an Alinsky tactic. Alinsky wrote, and the dems have practiced: Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage. Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame. According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.” The dem practice of using Alinsky tactics no longer works.

The blame shifting by some libs shows just how panicked they are. You blame the GOP for a drop in the stock market and you ignore that the financial world went nuts after Obama anounced that he was hiking taxes on those evil rich people and started acting like a lunatic demanding that we "pass the bill NOW" when a freaking bill does not exist. The socialist liberals phoney house of cards is crumbling and the world is just sitting back and laughing at you guys.

Hey Xtald00d.... can you tell us when Harry Reid is going to schedule votes on the Republican House bills that affect jobs that have been passed in the House and are sitting on his desk. Can anyone tell us when the democrat controlled Senate will work on Obama's last budget that didn't get one freaking affirmative democrat vote in the Senate. Why hasn't Harry Reid and the dems in the Senate worked out a deal with the budget Obama submitted? If we apply typical liberal logic to the situation we may be led to believe that Harry Reid is refusing to work with Obama because he is a racists and just wants to see our black president fail.

Henry Waxman wants us to believe that the republicans are using the Solyndra quagmire to push fossil fuel programs. Solyndra is just one example of green energy innitiatives that have failed financially.

By the way, ever hear of FDR's Works Program. Saved us from the Depression.

Sorry, but FDR's best friend and Treasury Secretary during that time period disagrees with you. FDR's Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, stated: "We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and now we also have an enormous debt to boot."

The entire world was in a major recession when FDR took office. Most countries did not take the steps that FRD took and they were out of their recession in short order. FDR with his programs took a recession and turned it into the Great Depression.

Democrats like to use regulation and forethought to try to PREVENT bad things from happening and foster economic industries that will be crucial for future growth.

Are you also obtuse, or just a liar. The Great Depression ran from1929 until 1941...and if anything, FDR made it worse.

And if you are paying any attention to the metrics, our president has us either in a double dip recession...or we never climbed out of the first one. And the historic negative numbers that now exist re the economy are horrific, and getting worse. Much due to the regulatory choke hold now placed on America by Democrats and the hundreds of acronym agencies.

How about the markets these days? Oh, and I suppose you liked the sovereign debt downgrade as well.

God help us with citizens like you...but then, you might not be a citizen.

“Are you also obtuse, or just a liar. The Great Depression ran from1929 until 1941 ...and if anything, FDR made it worse. And if you are paying any attention to the metrics, our president has us either in a double dip recession...or we never climbed out of the first one. And the historic negative numbers that now exist re the economy are horrific, and getting worse. Much due to the regulatory choke hold now placed on America by Democrats and the hundreds of acronym agencies. How about the markets these days? Oh, and I suppose you liked the sovereign debt downgrade as well. God help us with citizens like you...but then, you might not be a citizen.”

The New Deal was implemented in 1933 and 1936. I wrote that FDR’s policies helped save us from the Great Depression. Saved us as in rescued, not avoided it. As usual, the Republicans made the mess first and then a Democrat comes in cleans it up while getting heckled by the very people who made the mess because it is taking too long.

I guess if you measure recovery against how fast the Republican party can take a surplus and bury it deep into the muck, yes it does take longer to clean it up. Maybe if Republicans tried doing the right thing for the long haul, instead of always looking at short cuts and the quick buck, maybe they would have a better understanding of the time it takes to clean up their mess.

And if you were paying any attention, you would be able to see that without the stimulus, things would have been worse. I know it is hard for you to understand anything requiring imagination, but try. If the Stimulus and Tarp had not been implemented, the global banks would have failed before the end of the year. There would be nobody wondering whether we were still in a recession or not. It would be more than clear that the world-wide banking system had collapsed. You really wouldn’t need to worry about regulations because there would have been nothing left to regulate. There wouldn’t be a sovereign debt downgrade either because there wouldn’t be a sovereign.

You do realize that the banking industry failure was because of DEREGULATION right?

It is citizens like you that refuse to understand the most basic of Economics 101 fact-based truths – that for every dollar put in the hands of the lower and middle class, 100% goes back into the economy. I know you would rather live in the fairy-tale land of a completely distorted memory of King Reagan who granted Amnesty to immigrants, raised taxes 10 times and grew government at record levels. Go ahead and continue your rants and raves. I believe that people will start to realize that it is people like you are all that is left of the Republican party and just stay home until all of you go away.

As far as being a citizen, again this demonstrates your complete lack of logical argumentation. It lends nothing to the debate on economic policy but rather just demonstrates that not only are you an idiot, you’re a xenophobe.